Images show the airship's hangar bay, containing four Sparrowhawk biplanes, five of the eight 12-cylinder gasoline engines and objects from the ship's galley, including two sections of the aluminum stove, propane tanks, a dining table and a bench.

A second debris field contained the Macon's bow section, including the mooring mast receptacle, plus aluminum chairs and desks that may have been in a port side officers' or meteorologist's office.

Decades of mystery

The exact location of the submerged wreckage remained a mystery for nearly 50 years until a commercial fisherman snagged a piece of the USS Macon's girder in his net, and ended up displaying the artifact at a local seafood restaurant.

Meanwhile, researchers had attempted to locate the airship remains with no luck, because the objects weren't at the recorded sinking location. In the early 1990s they finally spotted the wreckage at a depth of 1,000 feet.

The new survey included researchers from the NOAA National Marine Sanctuary program, MBARI, the University of New Hampshire and Stanford University. The researchers will now investigate the level of preservation of the artifacts and whether further research at the site is feasible.